Texture Artists in modern Game Dev Thread

This one has been bugging me a lot lately.

In modding/indie community it's not easy to find someone who has a full understanding of how maps should be combined to create a decent texture.
There's a need for such people and their work is appreciated.

But in professional game dev its different.

The constantly increasing polycounts and popularization of normal map baking gave modelers lots of control over the
general look of a texture. A large portion of what used to be texture artist's job (defining shapes, etc) is now modeler's duty.
And so it has become an industry standard that 3d artists should have good texturing skills.

Besides making object skins, the main part of texture artists' job used to be creating semaless environment textures.
However today environments are made in a way that also requires lots of modeling/sculpting. Instead of covering flat surfaces with textures, modular sets are being commonly used. And stuff like rocks or brick walls - it's all sculpted and baked.

Because of all that the work of texture artists has been gradually losing significance, to the point where keeping them as separate position doesn't pay off for most of dev studios now.

So, what are the perspectives of a texture artist in modern pro game dev?
What are the skills that texture artist should gain in order to become more useful and desired dude?
What are game dev specializations that a skilled texture artist could switch to without taking years to develop impressive modelling skills?

Gimmie your thoughs. i'm especially interested in responses from people who worked/work in game dev.

A lot of artists still hand paint normals / displacement where required - I know we have people here that do. Learning skills like that can pay off, as hand painted maps are often better than those that can be generated automagically.

Yes it's more common that artists today are responsible for taking their assets through a larger portion of the pipeline. I would say it becomes harder and harder to just work with texturing. Additionally, many studios today don't have a large workforce - and in a small team it's more important with multi-talent than having specialists.

Switch to? I don't think you should switch for anything. But it's wise to make your skills broader. So what skills do you need to become more desirable? Modelling and concept art I would say. Out of those two, modelling is the easiest one to learn and get into: especially hard-surface modelling. Concept art is a lot more difficult to become an expert at. You need to have a great interest in drawing (should be doing it pretty much every day) because if you suck at drawing and want to become a concept artist, you have years of daily practise ahead of you and most people don't have the motivation to go through with that.

You could also chose a different approach and learn more 2D in form of User-interface design. That would mean you need (or "should") learn basic vector graphics and some scripting. Learning Adobe Illustrator and Flash could be a good option here.
Most user-interface designers today are responsible for both the graphics and the scripting of the HUD/UI. They don't exactly code, but they request code features from the programmers which they then implement in their designs via scripting.

Edited by: Nightshade

Ambershee wrote: A lot of artists still hand paint normals / displacement where required

yeah, so do I. but i think most studios find it too time consuming. And through baking you can also get AO map which makes texturing faster.

Niteshade wrote: Switch to? I don't think you should switch for anything. But it's wise to make your skills broader.

that's what i meant, i couldn't find a better word for it.
Of course there's no way that i forget my texturing skills but perhaps learning some another aspect of gamedev will help me get more jobs in future.

What you wrote pretty much coincides with my conclusions.
Concept art is one of paths i'm already on, though i suspect it will take me 2-3 years to get to the professional level.

interface/graphic designer - yeah, i thought about it. don't have much experience with this kind of design though. I don't find it particularily interesting also.

Another thing that came to my mind is stylized games (WoWesque mmorpgs and so on) that usually don't support normal maps. they use textures that rely completely on painting skills.
so people who have been texturing back when it was all about handpainting can definitely try that.
also, mobile gaming i guess.

Modeling is surely a must have skill in game art. i know all the basics but didn't educate myself enough to be able to make good modular sets or hi poly props. that's what i'm definitely gonna work on, perhaps along with zbrush sculpting.

There's also one more position that i find intriguing: Environment artist.
depending on job offer, it requires different skills: usually it's modeling and texturing, sometimes level design and sometimes concept art.

Edited by: Blaze_K

Blaze your work is good I don't see any problems. Besides a good company should invest in you as a person and help your grow.

Texturing always seemed so entwined with modeling to me, at least with props and characters. The texture was one of those things you always had to keep in mind; what needs to be modeled and what can be faked with a map, where should the UV seams go, etc.

To be honest if you can paint good, you should already have the thought process required to understand the details you're trying to recreate. Painting in some wear-and-tear with a custom brush in photoshop shouldn't feel much different to using a custom brush in a sculpting program.

There's still plenty of games that are less about crazy shaders and more about crazy painting, like you mentioned. Whether its stylized like WoW, Diablo 3, and Team Fortress 2, or just runs into some limitation where additional texture maps would be too large (Mii/XBLA, plenty of mobile/handheld games, etc). These kind of studios might still require you to have some sort of modeling ability though so you can at least build the simpler forms required.

Team Fortress 2 was all about the shaders. The texture maps were all pretty simple (but more than likely hand painted anyway)

Blaze_K wrote:
There's also one more position that i find intriguing: Environment artist.
depending on job offer, it requires different skills: usually it's modeling and texturing, sometimes level design and sometimes concept art.

And don't forget lighting and mood. Knowing your way around with lights and how to set the perfect mood - and being able to create great textures ofc - are pretty much must-haves for an environmental artist

Also, I must ask:
Would you consider moving to another country just to get a good job? Poland is not known as a great game developer country.
If you can get a job in say The UK, Sweden or Germany then you should take it. International experience is worth a lot in this industry. Language won't be a problem as long as you can speak and understand english.

Edited by: Nightshade

Death_Octimus wrote: Blaze your work is good I don't see any problems.

Thanks, and it's been a while Octimus.
as you can read the problem here isn't quality, it's lack of demand for people who only make textures.

Niteshade wrote: Would you consider moving to another country just to get a good job? Poland is not known as a great game developer country.

Perhaps it's not known as such, but there are some successful game studios here.
Such as CD Projekt - makers of Witcher series, Techland - makers of Call of Juarez series and upcoming Dead Island, People Can Fly - makers of Painkiller and Bulletstorm.

Actually, main studio of Techland is located in my city and i'm about to apply to them.
luckily they do have a 'texture artist' position.

If it doesn't work out here, i'll certainly consider moving somewhere else.

Remember that most game studios (at least in Finland) don't necessarily advertise that they MIGHT be recruiting should someone good enough appear. Also they don't advertise that they might need or want someone of specialized role. Of course extra skills always helps if you're going for any company under 50 employees, but even then its not a written rule in any way.

Do you have experience in the industry from before or applying for first job? It might be a good idea to apply as Intern or sort of "apprentice"-position where you get minimum pay for say 6 months after which there would be larger and longer discussion on future with the company. Even if they'd decline at the end of the 6 months period, you'd still have damn good work experience you can use to apply for next job

ambershee wrote: Team Fortress 2 was all about the shaders. The texture maps were all pretty simple (but more than likely hand painted anyway)

I was less referring to the lighting portion of the shaders (half lambert, fresnals, etc), and more about the lack of map-based effects (normals, etc).

Edited by: Cryrid

Blaze_K wrote:
Actually, main studio of Techland is located in my city and i'm about to apply to them.
luckily they do have a 'texture artist' position.

If it doesn't work out here, i'll certainly consider moving somewhere else.

Ah, Call of Juarez. That game makes me think of laddergoat:
Youtube.com (which definetly is an easter egg)

Anyway, good luck with your application.

I've always felt that the position should be referred to as "Artist" and the person should have a working knowledge of both techniques. In real life a sculptor typically paints his own things.

That said i've noticed a lot in the modding scene that a lot of times we get modelers who can't texture and as a result there is usually a deficit on texture artists.

I also imagine at a company like Naughty Dog working on uncharted 2 they have lots of dedicated texture artist. They must, their textures are so plentiful and gorgeous

I think it's still possible to make it as a texture artist, but if it's going to be your lone focus, you have to be REALLY good and REALLY versatile.

I am currently on a team with 4 of the environment artists doing their own textures. The difficulty with that is that everybody has a slightly different way to texturepaint, so you have to control results in order for them not to stand out next to each other. It looks odd, if you have one environment and several people texturing it the way they want. So I think there is a definate advantage in having a texture artist(s) aboard - for a more unified look.

However, I think its split up into groups, so e.g. whoever makes weapons makes all of them, or at least for one faction. It just looks better when you're in front of something that supposedly features the same style and characteristics as its next.

SinKing wrote: I am currently on a team with 4 of the environment artists doing their own textures. The difficulty with that is that everybody has a slightly different way to texturepaint, so you have to control results in order for them not to stand out next to each other. It looks odd, if you have one environment and several people texturing it the way they want. So I think there is a definate advantage in having a texture artist(s) aboard - for a more unified look.

Just so you know: That's a workflow/management problem and not a staff problem.
If you (in your team) set up a workflow that everyone should follow then it's easier to get consistency. Stuff like how the AO's should be used, what brushes (grunge, dirt, noise and other brushes), what layer blend modes to use and in what order, how to create the spec from the dif and so on... If all this is decided and the artists have some already finished texture to use as references, things should be going more smoothly and it will be easier to get unity.

He could mean that they clash stylistically, in which case technical details can only go so far. If that was the case what you need is a good art director.

When I think of all the times I wish I had an art director....

Edited by: ShinobiNFC